Well, playing Barnet, it had to be a hair reference, and with the way our season is going it needs to be this number twenty-two hit by Beck from 1996, from his fifth album – Odelay. Well, I had got a devil’s haircut in my mind.
Quiz time answer — Bromley were founded in 1892, which two current league sides (both in the Premier League) were also founded in 1892? Liverpool and Newcastle United.
After Monday night’s loss to Bromley we have reached the halfway point of the season, and although we aren’t in the relegation places, we are worse off for points than we were in the relegation haunted season of three years ago.
In sorting out directions to get to today’s game I found that I have been under a near forty year misapprehension about where Barnet were based. This is my first visit, and I always assumed that they were in northeast London near to High Barnet tube station. I didn’t realise they were from Chipping Barnet, and so are in northwest London instead.
Tickets for this game were only available from the Barnet website. Getting them was a terrible experience, worse than our old ticketing system. It says you can buy as a guest, but then kicks you out at checkout, couldn’t get back in as hadn’t set up a password, so had to register, then the amount of data you have to supply for my own and Helen’s tickets was illegally excessive. And the PDF they first sent was corrupted, so had to deal with their “customer service” to get a usable version. And they’ve refused to remove the account I didn’t want to set up. So I’ve reported them to the ICO for illegal data harvesting.
After the abuse of captain Dion Conroy on Monday night, there have been a number of statements. Harry McKirdy’s video was good, although an indication of just how much our fan base will moan about anything is that the first reaction to the video by one fan was to criticise McKirdy for what he was wearing. Subsequent statements have come from CEO Tom Allman, and the CTSA, calling for fans to get behind the team, and not to abuse the players. There was even a rare video of the owners where they gave Scott their backing and said to look out for signings in the January transfer window.
Speaking of which, reports in the Northern Irish press last night were that we have agreed a fee to sign Glentoran’s Northern Ireland U21 international defender Johnny Russell, so we’ll see how that goes.
Two new signings this morning, the first is experienced defender, Theo Vassell, from Barrow. Experienced defenders are a good thing, but the last defender signed from Barrow didn’t work out well. The other is free agent Taylor Richards, an attacking midfielder, who was let go between QPR in September after being on loan for part of last season with Cambridge United.
In between games I’ve been catching up on reading the last two editions of The Blizzard, this paragraph talking about legendary Wolves manager Stan Cullis, did raise a wry smile from me.
The other piece that caught my eye was the story of Joe Lapira and his very surprise cap for the Republic of Ireland on their ill-fated US summer tour in 2007. He was a college player and was invited to train with the team after twenty-five players had dropped out. If that wasn’t a big enough surprise, him getting on the bench for the Ecuador game came along, and to top that he goes on for the last seven minutes. He played professionally in Norway for a couple of seasons but never made a big impression. That he wasn’t a household name wouldn’t have bothered my dad, in his soft Irish lilt he wouldn’t have called him by name anyway, he’d have been ‘yer man’ or ‘eejit’ anyway.
There are a few programmes in the collection from over the years, both home and away.
There is no current crossover of squad players, but there has been a lot over the years, with this programme from the festive period in 2011 being an example, with John Akinde and David Hunt in our squad who both went on to play for Barnet, and in the Barnet squad there is Gavin McCallum who played briefly for us, and Izale McLeod and Mark Marshall who would play for us in the future.
Other players to have played for both include Luke Gambin, George Francomb, Jordan Maguire-Drew, Reece Grego-Cox, David Sesay, Dom Telford, Josh Wright, Josh Payne, Bondz N’Gala, Josh Dohery, and Barry Cogan, with another dozen or so doing so as well.
I mentioned for the Colchester game that I’d gone to the Proset 1991-92 season to find a card for them only to realise they had been relegated from the league. The team that replaced them were Barnet, so there is a card in there for them. It’s the manager/fixture list card with Barry Fry on it, looking much younger than he did when he was at the Broadfield earlier in the season for the visit of Peterborough in the Vertu Trophy.
Barnet hold the record for winning the Conference / National League title, as their title last season meant they had won it for a fourth time.
All of our previous eight league appearances against Barnet have come in League Two, with four wins, two draws, and two losses, with it being two wins, a draw, and a loss both at home and away. There was also a 1993 FA Cup tie against them which we lost. We also played them in non-league; in the Southern League Division 1 in 1965-66 drawing at home and losing away, in the 1969-70 Southern League Premier season again drawing at home and losing away, in the 1976-77 Southern League Division 1 season winning at home and losing away, and in the 2004-05 Conference season where we lost home and away. We also played them in the Southern League Cup in the 1967-68 season, winning at home, and losing away, and going out on aggregate. There was also a pre-season friendly against them in 1998 which was a home goalless draw.
The journey up to Barnet takes us through Wembley Park station and we can see the arch of the stadium as we trundle by. With our position now it is hard to believe we were celebrating there less than two years ago.
We go into the game eight places and thirteen points behind Barnet, who are just in the top half of the table. Not only does my usual spiel of the last month of us being in the relegation places if results go against us today stand, but it’s also now possible for us to end up bottom of the table, although with Shrewsbury playing Bristol Rovers it would take us getting a bad beating to kill our goal difference for that to happen.
Even for us, we are at the ground early, chance to go into the club shop, pick up a fridge magnet and pen. Programmes are online only. For an online offering there are a lot of adverts in it. And they don’t necessarily go for accuracy in it either as apparently the last game between the two sides in 2018 was played at Town Mead!
Once in the ground there is a massive indoor bar area, which is just what is needed on a freezing day. Food isn’t bad, even if it is a bit pricey. Yet at pitch side it is an odd stadium. Two decent stands, including where the away fans are, but then one half covered seating area along one side of the pitch and a grass bank behind the other goal. And they only bother with a working tannoy in the main home stand.
There are changes in the starting lineup from Monday night’s game, Gavan Holohan and Dion Pereira are out of the squad entirely, Ade Adeyemo and Reece Brown drop to the bench, and the two new signings start, and the two Harry’s start – Forster and McKirdy.
We are in our all-white kit with red trim and Barnet are in orange and black shirts and black shorts and socks.
And we start the game as if we’ve only just rolled in from an extremely late New Year’s Eve party. It is all Barnet. An early corner is half cleared but comes back and they win another corner.
We win a free kick in our own half and Dion Conroy tries a shot, which has neither the power nor direction to beat the keeper. Barnet come back down the pitch and win another corner. It is blocked and goes back to a Barnet player, and we tackle and concede another corner, this one beats the first man and most of the team and is headed in at the back post. Harvey Davies was down and claiming a foul. The ref tells him to shut up after awarding the goal and we trail 0-1.
And from the restart Barnet are almost in again, we give away a cheap throw, miss a tackle and a Barnet player has lots of time to shoot, Davies gets an outstretched foot to it and deflects onto the post and the follow up is blocked. There is no let up, they are through again, a shot pinball around in the box before being cleared. And they come again, this time down the left, a tackle just inside the box sees the Barnet player go down and the ref waves away penalty claims. Which is lucky as that looked a stonewall one.
We finally manage to get out of our own half, only for the ball to come straight back, and only a great saving tackle from Charlie Barker prevents another shot. It is like a fucking shooting gallery, there’s a blocked shot, and another shot forces a save from Davies, and it goes for a corner, which we head away for a throw.
There is a Crawley break, Harry McKirdy gets it in midfield and moves it onto debutant Taylor Richards who plays it to the left to Josh Flint who is playing as left wing back today, he drives into the box and shoots and the shot comes back off the post and is cleared. Predictably Barnet come straight back down the left, and the winger puts a great ball in straight to their number 9, who thankfully muffs the shot, and Davies gets enough on it to stop it.
At the other end Harry Forster works an opportunity and has a shot parried, and we put the rebound over the bar. Ryan Loft and Davies are both down injured, the ref takes ninety seconds before he allows anyone on to treat Davies, all the players are on the sideline long before that, and Loft needs replacing (if only I had a quid for each time I’ve heard or seen that kind of comment), and Kabby Tshimanga comes on to replace him.
When the game restarts Barnet win another corner, Forster gets to the clearance on the left, he beats two men down the line, cuts inside and is hacked down, bringing a booking for the Barnet player. The resulting free kick goes into the box, bounces around a bit, but is cleared.
We have shaken off the hangovers now. A Barker long throw gets to the edge of the area, and a shot is saved and scrambled away. We win it back and Richards runs through midfield to the edge of the area and his shot goes just wide right. Another long throw from Barker goes all the way across the area and the keeper collects. As he goes to clear he doesn’t check behind him as he puts the ball down, McKirdy nips in front, nicks the ball, and slots it in, and we are level 1-1.
Another Barker long throw into the box comes out to McKirdy and he tries a spectacular long-range effort which goes well wide. We are creating more pressure now and work the ball from left to right and Richards has another shot from the edge of the area blocked, it comes to Forster and his cross is put out for a throw. Barnet clear and surge forward and win a corner, the headed effort from it goes wide. Barnet get another corner, taken to the near post and headed over.
There are four added minutes at the end of the half, an attempted attack is broken up and Barnet stream forward again, passing it on and on and always seeming to have another player in space to get it to, the final attempt is put out for a corner which is flicked out for a throw and the half time whistle goes with the score at 1-1.
Out of the corner of my eye I can see tube trains rattling by, and the sun is setting over that way as well and the sky looks great, at least at half time I can get a proper look and a photo so I can concentrate on the game.
The second half starts with Barnet back on the front foot, getting a shot straight at Davies. But there are signs that the usual half time bromide ingestion hasn’t taken place as we win a ball, get it to Jay Williams, he plays it on to Forster who beats a man and crosses it in low, but it fails to beat the first man and is cleared.
Barnet get a corner, it’s cleared out of the box and then pumped back in, but the offside flag is up. Another Barnet attack, working the ball through the middle and a shot from the edge of the box goes just wide.
A long ball down the left sees McKirdy take it down well, beat a man and play Flint in, he is tackled in the box for a corner. It is headed clear from under the bar for a throw on the right. Barker hurls it into the box, and it’s headed out to McKirdy on the edge of the area and his shot is blocked and cleared. The other debutant, Theo Vassell gets a booking after Barnet win a throw as he puts a hand on a player as he runs it and the player goes down like he’s been shot by a sniper.
We make a substitution with Richards going off to be replaced by Louie Watson. Geraldo Bajrami gets to a ball in midfield and gets a shot off which is blocked. We keep it, McKirdy beats a man on the left and dinks a cross in towards Tshimanga at the near post, it goes out to Watson, and his shot is well saved for a corner. It comes to Bajrami and his shot is blocked, a second shot from Tshimanga is saved and a Flint effort goes over the bar.
Watson picks up a yellow card for kicking the ball away after the ref blows for a foul by Williams, a bit harsh as he was already kicking it as the ref blows.
The free kick is deep to the back post and put back across the goal and headed over, the first Barnet chance for a while. We can’t clear it out of our own half due to doing the fannying about goal kick routine and Barnet work it to the left and get another cross in and we head it out for a corner. We half clear it for a throw, which is taken short and played back to the taker, and it was crossed in and Davies somewhat flaps at it, and it goes to a waiting Barnet player who rifles it in and we trail again, 1-2.
From the kick off we attack and Forster, Tshimanga, and Watson link up and we win a corner. It is swung in and Barker wins the header, but it goes well over the bar At the other end a Barnet corner is headed out of the box, and a shot comes back in and takes a deflection and goes for another corner which comes to nothing. We make a couple of substitutions with Forster and McKirdy being replaced by Ade Adeyemo and Kaheim Dixon. But there is another Barnet attack, and another cross, and another header, this one sees a Davies save.
There are six added minutes, a ball into the box sees Tshimanga win a header and then the Barnet keeper runs into him and goes down like a sack of spuds, and the ref gives the diving piece of shit a free kick. Compare and contrast to the decision in the same place in the first half for the Barnet goal. Barnet attack and put a shot over the grass bank. Flint wins a corner, it is headed clear, Dixon wins and puts a cross in which lands on the roof of the net. Late late and there’s a long throw in from Flint and as that is headed clear the final whistle goes and we have lost 1-2.
It’s probably a fair result given the first twenty minutes in which we were dreadful. No idea if there was an announcement about the crowd numbers, as they don’t want the away fans to hear anything being said. Our fans were in good voice and there was decent back and forth between the two sets of fans.
Somehow the journey back always seems longer after a loss, there was some lovely art deco architecture on West Hampstead tube station on the way, but it’s another miserable return back to Crawley.
The loss sees us drop a place after Bristol Rovers beat Shrewsbury Town for their first win under Steve Evans. Harrogate and Newport both lost as well, so we are twenty-first as we start the new year.
Quiz time – until Barnet won the National League title last season to take the outright record of most titles at that level, which other team did they share it with at three wins apiece?
Next up, another away trip, this time to Cheltenham Town on another different day of the week as we play them on Sunday, and we desperately need to change the run of results we are on. Come on you reds.